ESPE Abstracts

Background: Fertility Preservation (FP) in children and adolescents poses unique challenges as efficacy is unproven.Objective and hypotheses: To describe characteristics and evidence for potential fertility in ovarian and testicular tissue cryopreservation specimens (OTCP and TTCP respectively) taken from paediatric and adolescent patients, stratified by age, and prior chemotherapy.Method: Retrospective review of gonadal biopsies a...

Background: Social media usage is rapidly changing and advancing methods of communication, both personally and professionally. To bridge the theory practice gap, nurses need to be involved in research, both conducting, reading and disseminating. Currently, no journal exists for endocrine nurses.Objective and Hypotheses: To explore endocrine nurses’ experiences in conducting, reading and disseminating research, and whether social media would be an ap...

Background: Genomic imprinting is the process by which preferential methylation of one parental allele results in parent of origin specific expression of particular genes. Methylation is established during gametogenesis and is maintained throughout development. Alterations in any of the processes in the establishment and maintenance of methylation can lead to aberrant imprinting, which can result in either reactivation of the original silent allele or the sile...

Background: Congenital hypothyroidism is a common condition with reported incidence between 1/2000 – 1/4000 live births. In approximately 85% of cases this is sporadic due to a structural abnormality of the thyroid gland. Approximately 15% of cases are hereditary and secondary to thyroid dyshormonogenesis. Most of these are due to mutations in one of the genes involved in iodine transport or organification, mutations in the thyroglobulin gene or d...

Background: Standard assays for serum cortisol measurements determine total cortisol (TC) concentrations but not the unbound biologically active serum free cortisol (sFC). Measurement of TC would be greatly influenced by alteration in cortisol-binding globulin (CBG) concentrations. It is, therefore, important to determine sFC levels when CBG levels are either decreased or increased.Objective and hypotheses: To determine basal and glucagon-stimulated sFC ...

Background: Hypophysitis is an uncommon inflammatory disorder of the pituitary gland and is classified both clinically (Primary vs secondary) and histologically (lymphocytic, granulomatous or xanthomatous). Primary hypophysitis is exceptionally rare in the paediatric population with only a few cases reported, the majority being Lymphocytic Hypophysitis.Case Report: We present the case of a previously healthy 14-year-old ...

Background and aim: Medulloblastoma is a highly malignant childhood brain tumor, requiring treatment with high dose cranio-spinal irradiation and aggressive chemotherapy. Survivors of are at high risk for multiple endocrine deficiencies, including growth retardation and growth hormone (GH) deficiency. Previous studies reported decreased final adult height in survivors of childhood medulloblastoma, with height standard deviation score (SDS) ranging from -1.9 to...

Background: The Best Practice Tariff (BPT) was introduced in England in 2011–2012 to improve paediatric diabetes care. An enhanced amount is paid based on the attainment of 14 standards.Objective and hypotheses: We describe the experience of a District General Hospital working with the new Tariff, including the structural changes and the effect on diabetic control.Method: We observed the changes to the local service since the ...

Background: Endocrine deficiencies, including impairment of the hypothalamic-pituitary-gonadal axis (HPGA), are found in the majority of survivors of medulloblastoma, due to high-dose craniospinal irradiation and gonadotoxic chemotherapy. Data regarding HPGA function in survivors of medulloblastoma is limited to small groups of patients and focusses mainly on female survivors. Furthermore, few studies investigated specific risk factors such as treatment protoc...

Aims: Do-It-Yourself Artificial Pancreas Systems (DIYAPS) represent a unique patient-initiated treatment in which commercially available and approved medical devices such as continuous glucose monitoring systems (CGMs) and insulin pumps are connected by an off-label algorithm, and are remotely controlled by open-source algorithms to automate insulin delivery. While these systems are co-created by the DIYAPS community, and access is open to everyone, users have...